Category Archives: Service Orchestration

Last year I wrote a post ‘The Power of a Service Store’ which barely scratched the surface on the power of self-service delivery. This week thanks to RES Software the world of IT has welcomed one of the most exciting new products in recent years, IT Store – Happy Birthday!

In brief IT Store is the successor/new version of RES’s Service Orchestration solution which was an extension of Automation Manager. Now sold as a separate product (but still with the same level on integration for Automation Manager and Workspace Manager users) the major new feature is the stunning user interface.

Before I start covering this, it’s worth noting that the whole RES product suite has been updated (with a funky new installer too) with tons of new features so check it out.

We’ve been using the IT store to deliver services and applications to 23,000 users since September last year (8000 before that). Out of those users, just over 21,000 of them have subscribed to services with just under 200,000 service transactions having taken place.

In 2012 we pestered RES quite hard about the un-user friendly Service Orchestration client (below).

Luckily RES shared our vision (or we shared theirs :P) and several months after invited us to be an early launch customer and work with them to help develop what the IT Store is today.

The new interface replaces the client (above) with a new look web portal that can be accessed with any browser (not just Windows – Cool now there is an OS X Agent for Automation Manager). It’s a simple install (3-4 mins) and utilizes IIS. On a domain joined Windows box users will automatically be signed in to the store on launch.

From a user’s perspective this is a quick view of the experience:

Once in you are presented with the home screen (the looks/style/logo can all be changed via the management console which has received some welcome performance improvements).

By default you see a “tiled” icon view of available services with a customizable logo and description. You can click on the service for more information and screenshots. You can also change the view from tiled to detailed (my preference).

What’s proved popular with our users is the URL support in the service details. You can link a service to the relevant support information/site. We use Lynda.com to provide our users with lots of software tutorials which simply opens a new browser window.

Depending on the service you can either ‘request’, ‘install’ or ‘Add to Cart’. The Add to Cart feature is my current favourite and really adds value for new users who need to compose their workspace when they start. You can configure the options depending on the service for example some services might require user input and aren’t’ suited to being used in conjunction with a shopping cart.

We have around 400 services (mainly apps) and this increasing by 10 – 20 per week. Luckily the built in service search facility is pretty instant plus with the help of category views finding the services you require is fast and fluid.

On the left hand side under the cart/home button you will find the message centre and transaction history buttons.

Using the History button you can view your current and past service transaction history (with filters).

I will be doing more IT Store blog posts over the coming weeks and months. I’ll demonstrate how easy it is to setup a simple service and integrate with RES Workspace Manager and Automation Manager.

IT Store is not just about application delivery or even End User Computing, How should service delivery be approached? Services can be anything from delivering or making desktop applications available through to provisioning VMs in the datacentre or even provisioning accounts in Office 365. Some key points to bear in mind:

The IT Store is a be a mechanism which automates the business workflow for a service

The IT Store understands who should receive the service

The IT Store determines what the “trigger” for service delivery should be

The IT Store enforces approval processes (if required)

The ITStore launches any technical process required to enable the service

The IT Store deals with the return of the service if the user no longer requires it, or they no longer qualify

The timing of this release couldn’t be more perfect as IT departments have become or are starting to become service-centric operations. Overtime we need to think of our users as service consumers so they can choose how to compose their workspaces. The IT Store is the ultimate way to aggregate everything (processes, app delivery platforms, management tasks, etc.) into a one stop IT shop.

The point of this post was to just show you a brief view of the IT Store, to congratulate RES Software on a sterling effort and to thank them for listening to their customers. I can’t wait to see how this product develops!

The good news is that RES Automation Manager and Service Orchestration integrate just as seamlessly.

Again if you have integrated Automation Manager and/or Service Orchestration with VMware View, Citrix XenDesktop or even a good old sysprep deployment before then this is really nothing new.

Install the Automation Manager agent on the Mirage reference machine

Locate the agent in the Automation Manager management console and open its properties

Click on Prepare for Image and following the instructions (you can choose to run automation tasks when agents are first invoked).

Note that if you set a runbook/project to run when the Mirage client is “layered”, this job will run on every subsequent Mirage re-layering or layer update. – We found this useful in a hotdesk and/or student environment as we run delprof2 to clear any local user profiles or any profiles that didn’t remove properly (be nice if Mirage had an option to clean/remove local profiles).

Service Orchestration… Simple… Just install the Service Orchestration client on the reference machine, configure it to point to your environment.

So there you have it… Some more validation of how to combine the most exciting next gen deployment and management technology with the best user environment and system/service automation technology available today!

Fingers crossed our VMware Horizon Mirage business case is successful because I wouldn’t want to do it any other way!

At work we have traditionally opted for a push “everything” to everyone and everywhere model with the desktop. This in my view is a legacy concept and can pigeonhole users in to a single “class” of user type.

For us (IT) it’s becoming increasingly challenging to manage the diverse range of users we have. From the task worker to mobile power user we can no longer “dictate” what people use to work/study.

One of the most exciting projects I think I’ve led in my time here is the introduction of the KUSS (Kingston University Service Store). With the KUSS we will (have already started to) change users into service consumers and empower our staff and students to control their workspace. This is achieved by providing a personal service catalogue, where services can be subscribed to and where the service will follow the user.

To give an example of how a small and simple service can dramatically improve the user experience, as well as save time and not have IT involved with the process…

One of our service store workflows has reduced one support task from an average 1 to 3 days response time down to 30 seconds!

Our academics often require the ability to have local administrator access on their managed workstations. The traditional process for this has been to,

Log a call with the service desk

Wait for the call to be escalated to the local support team

Wait for local support team to either remotely add the user to the local administrators group or visit the machine in person.

Now with the KUSS we are providing users with a self-service facility to grant local administration access on their local workstation without the service desk or IT being involved. In addition to this a job is automatically opened and resolved for the user on our helpdesk system (for audit purposes).

This is one of many “small” services that can have a big impact.

Of course a service store is much more than simple administration tasks… Application access, app delivery, drive mappings, printer access, storage and VM provisioning – Anything that can be automated/scripted can be turned into a service for users to “consume” and make life easier for IT – or at least allow us to focus on innovation rather than spending our time being reactive.

For those that are interested… We’re using RES Service Orchestration for the KUSS. I can’t think of a better product that brings self-service delivery and workspace management together.